Ilan Ben Zion, a reporter at the Associated Press, is a former news editor at The Times of Israel. He holds a Masters degree in Diplomacy from Tel Aviv University and an Honors Bachelors degree from the University of Toronto in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, Jewish Studies, and English.

Ex-Mossad chief warns of ‘demographic threat’

A former head of the Mossad warns against a demographic threat to the State of Israel brought about by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which he says poses the greatest risk to the state.

“The Jewish state has one existential threat,” Tamir Pardo says at a conference in Netanya in memory of his late predecessor, Meir Dagan. The Jewish and Palestinian populations in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are nearly equal, and Israel must act to separate itself. “It’s the time bomb that’s been ticking all the time for a while. In an exceptional way we’ve decided to bury our heads deep in the sand, to preoccupy ourselves with alternative facts and flee from reality while creating other various external threats.”

He says we are fast approaching the point of no return, at which point a bi-national state will be the only solution, marking the end of the Zionist dream. “The clock is ticking, we must weigh the facts and not the alternative facts and reach a decisions. The time has come to choose a direction.”

Police raid Islamic Movement office in Umm al-Fahm

Turkey to seek reversal of US laptop ban

Turkey said Tuesday it would ask the United States to reverse a ban on electronic devices larger than cellphones in the cabin of flights from 10 airports in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa.

“We particularly emphasize how this will not benefit the passenger and that reverse steps or a softening should be adopted,” Transport Minister Ahmet Arslan told reporters, saying the decision was not right.

UK also to introduce electronics ban

Netanyahu: Israel policy in Syria unchanged

Russia has not changed its policy vis-a-vis its coordination with the Israeli air force over the Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, denying reports that Moscow over the weekend decided no longer to allow Israel to attack targets in the war-torn country after one such strike nearly hit a Russian asset.

“If there’s intelligence and operation feasibility, we strike, and so it will continue,” he tells reporters in his Beijing hotel as he wraps up the official part of his three-day visit to Chinese capital.

Netanyahu says that he told Russian President Vladimir Putin during their recent meeting in Moscow that Israel will continue to thwart attempts by Iran and its terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah to smuggle advanced weapons to Lebanon via Syria.

“Our policy is consistent, and this is what I told Putin,” the prime minister says.

Israel launched several attacks targets in Syria in recent days, one of which nearly hit a Russian asset. Moscow subsequently summoned Israel’s ambassador to Russia, Gary Koren, to note its protest. Syria’s ambassador to the UN later said that Russia had changed its policy and no longer grants Israel freedom of action over Syrian skies.

Israel does not inform the Russian forces stationed in Syria ahead of attacks there, out of fear for the Israeli pilots.

“We are very careful not to hit whoever is not supposed to be hit,” Netanyahu says.

UK bans laptops on flights from 6 countries

Britain’s government has banned electronic devices in the carry-on bags of passengers traveling to the UK from six countries, following closely on a similar ban imposed by the United States.

The government says in a statement that Prime Minister Theresa May chaired a meeting on aviation security earlier Tuesday in which new aviation security measures on all inbound direct flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia were agreed upon. The statement says that Britain has been in touch with the Americans to fully understand their position.

Under the new arrangements, passengers on the flights “will not be allowed to take any phones, laptops or tablets larger than a normal sized mobile or smart phone,” into the cabin.

Liberman warns of EU push for Israeli-Palestinian peace

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman says that the European Union is planning a diplomatic “assault” on Israel to push for a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

“Therefore we must be smart, not just right,” he says at a defense conference in Netanya. “All the initiatives and proclamations, particularly with the sensitivity of the situation we live in, must be very cautious.”

Tassa and The Kuwaitis are a self-styled “cross-cultural joint Jewish-Arabic project from Israel which revives the music of the Al-Kuwaiti Brothers – composers of some of the most popular Iraqi songs from the early 20th century.”

New Zealand lawmaker: FM didn’t have authority to back UN resolution

New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister did not have the required approval of the country’s Cabinet to support a United Nations Security Council resolution critical of Israel, an opposition party charges.

On Tuesday, the leader of the populist political party New Zealand First cited the Cabinet manual as requiring such a proposal get Cabinet approval even though Prime Minister Bill English said that Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully did not need such approval to co-sponsor a measure calling for a halt to the building of Israeli settlements and the re-establishing of the pre-1967 borders.

“Section 5.73 of the Cabinet manual expressly requires that any international proposal, including ‘denunciation,’ must first be approved by Cabinet,” Winston Peters, the New Zealand First leader and a lawmaker for Northland, says in the party’s statement.

“Mr. McCully should never have been allowed to act unilaterally on such an important issue,” Peters also says.

Netanyahu, Kahlon get poor marks in performance poll

With a coalition crisis in full swing amid a spat between the prime minister and finance minister, and rumors of an election on the horizon, a new poll suggests Israelis aren’t satisfied with their performances.

Hezbollah says IDF chief lying about senior fighter’s assassination

A Hezbollah official responds to IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot’s remarks that the IDF wasn’t behind the assassination of a senior commander in the organization last year, calling the Israeli general’s remarks “false and null.”

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Ex-Mossad chief warns of ‘demographic threat’

A former head of the Mossad warns against a demographic threat to the State of Israel brought about by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which he says poses the greatest risk to the state.

“The Jewish state has one existential threat,” Tamir Pardo says at a conference in Netanya in memory of his late predecessor, Meir Dagan. The Jewish and Palestinian populations in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip are nearly equal, and Israel must act to separate itself. “It’s the time bomb that’s been ticking all the time for a while. In an exceptional way we’ve decided to bury our heads deep in the sand, to preoccupy ourselves with alternative facts and flee from reality while creating other various external threats.”

He says we are fast approaching the point of no return, at which point a bi-national state will be the only solution, marking the end of the Zionist dream. “The clock is ticking, we must weigh the facts and not the alternative facts and reach a decisions. The time has come to choose a direction.”